This invention involves the construction of a special kind of lariat rope body for making lariats and the resultant lariats for use in competitive cattle roping contests, and particularly for calf roping and for steer roping, both of which provide substantial prize money for the fastest times. Lariats are also used by ranch hands in everyday roping of cattle and horses as part of ranching practice and animal husbandry. The invention also involves the method of making lariat rope bodies and lariats and novel equipment for making rope bodies, particularly the lariat rope body of this invention.
Lariats have been used in ranching and rodeos for over 100 years. The term lariat defines a rope having some form of honda or knot at one end which, when the other end of the rope is pulled through the honda, a loop is formed that is used to encircle and then tighten around the object the lariat is being used to catch. The term lasso is often used interchangeably with the term lariat.
In recent times the prize money for top times in team roping, steer roping and calf roping have escalated rapidly, and competitions now exist for all levels of roping skills from world class ropers down through beginners. Currently, the prize money in the team roping finals competition may be as much as $180,000 per roper or more. The purse is usually broken down step wise for six places with the top time getting 29 percent and the sixth best time getting 5 percent. Competitive ropers are handicapped similar to golfers, and a competitive roper competes with those having similar handicaps.
Team Roping is the only rodeo event where two cowboys compete as partners, each sharing victory or defeat on the back of a horse. The xe2x80x9cheaderxe2x80x9d ropes a steer""s horns and rides to the left. Then the xe2x80x9cheelerxe2x80x9d goes to work, roping both of the steer""s hind legs in one of the most difficult maneuvers in rodeo. The ropers must each xe2x80x9cdallyxe2x80x9d (wrap their rope around their saddle horn) after their head or heel catches. The time clock stops when both horses are facing the steer with ropes dallied. A five second penalty is assessed if the heeler catches only one of the steer""s hind legs. In ranching practice, large cattle would be roped and taken down in this manner and one or more ranch hands or a veterinarian would rush to the immobile animal to mark, vaccinate or treat the animal for some malady.
Calf roping, which can be traced directly to the ranch work of catching calves for branding or medical treatment, has evolved into one of professional rodeo""s quickest and most exciting events. The calf gets a designated head start into the rodeo arena and must trip a barrier string before the cowboy and horse can begin the chase. Once in the arena, the roper must xe2x80x9ccatchxe2x80x9d his calf with his lariat, dismount, run to the calf, drop the 300 pound animal to the arena floor, gather three of the calf""s legs and tie them together with a six-foot xe2x80x9cpiggingxe2x80x9d string and throw up his hands to signal the end of his run.
Steer roping, which also derives from ranch work of a single cowboy having to immobilize a larger steer for medical treatment or other reason, has also evolved into a very competitive rodeo event. The steer gets a designated head start into the arena and is then chased and lassoed around the head or horns after which the roper rides up to the left side of the steer, throws the rope over the hindside of the steer and rides left which trips or throws the steer to the ground. The roper then quickly jumps off of the horse while the horse keeps tension on the rope and quickly ties three of the steer""s legs together with a xe2x80x9cpiggin stringxe2x80x9d and throws his hands up signaling the end of the run.
The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association national final""s record for Team Roping is 3.8 seconds, set at a National Finals Rodeo. There are many competitive Team Roping events all around the country, and a member of a roping team having a typical time of around 5 seconds can earn more than $20,000 per year roping only on Friday nights and weekends. With the record time for Team Roping being 3.8 seconds, the winning times usually are determined by hundredths or tenths of a second. This, combined with the prize money involved, makes the performance of the equipment used in the roping process very critical. The most important piece of equipment is the lariat.
First, the rope for a lariat must be stiffer or harder than conventional general duty ropes. This characteristic is referred to as body. This has been achieved with more twists and by twisting and final winding of the rope under high tension in the manufacturing process and finally by impregnating team roping lariats with a wax. Second, the rope or lariat must feel good in the roper""s hand. This is subjective, but is a combination of weight, flexibility or stiffness, and smoothness. While feel hasn""t yet been defined with a combination of objective test properties, the feel affects the roper""s effectiveness and thus his selection of a lariat. Each competitive roper will typically buy 25-50 ropes per year. Next, the rope must have enough weight per inch, density, to feel and throw well, i.e. for the roper to sense where the tip of the lasso, leading portion of the loop, is and for the tip to fly in the direction of the throw.
Finally, the surface of the lariat rope must be smooth and slick enough for the rope to slide quickly on the burner of the honda as the loop is reduced to tighten around subject of the throw, i.e. the horns, legs, etc. The honda, sometimes spelled hondoo or hondo, is a small loop in one end of the rope through which most of the remainder of the rope passes to form the lasso or lariat loop. The burner is an appliance fastened to the lead portion of the honda on at least the inside portion of the rope for the rope to slide against when the loop is being reduced to tighten on the object being roped. The burner protects the rope from abrading and also reduces the resistance of the sliding rope, i.e. makes the rope faster. One common burner consists of rawhide sewn onto the honda. A honda and burner are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,638 and other hondas are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,165,091, 3,716,031, 4,562,793 and 4,928,634.
Generally, it is desired to have a denser rope with the same or a smaller diameter than conventional lariat rope. Attempts have been made to achieve this by twisting tighter, i.e. more twists per inch and/or by twisting under higher tension. Lariat rope made in this way are xe2x80x9cbouncyxe2x80x9d and the loops of these lariats tend to bounce off the surface they strike instead of staying in contact. This often makes the roper miss. The loop should actually collapse, generally into a FIG. 8, immediately after contacting the neck, etc. of the steer until the loop can be reduced to tighten onto the horns. A xe2x80x9cbouncyxe2x80x9d rope is too stiff to allow this to happen easily as is necessary for increasing the percentage of successful catches.
To get the desired density in the lariat rope, it has been conventional to blend polyester monofilament yarns with plied and/or cabled nylon in the strands. This technique has been used to make state of the art lariat rope, all of which were coreless, prior to the present invention, but it has made the ropes harder to manufacture. The stiffness and humidity absorption characteristics of the polyester fibers are different than those of nylon, and a careful blend has been necessary in the past to balance density with feel and body characteristics, particularly when the lariat rope is made or used in high humidity conditions.
The conventional lariat rope body has been made mostly with conventional rope-making equipment. Lariat ropes have been made by twisting three bundles of monofilament yarns, plied yarns and cabled yarns of desired length individually under tension followed by twisting the three twisted bundles together under tension to make the rope. The head box of conventional lariat rope making machines has three hooks spaced apart in-line to hold the three bundles of yarns under tension, the other ends held by a tailbox, while they are twisted into rope. A rope body for making a lariat for calf and steer roping is made in one short section, typically 28 feet long (shorter for children), at a time. This is quite different from the way rope for other applications is made. The rope section is the length needed to make a lariat. A rope section for making lariats is typically called a rope body.
After the rope section is made, the two ends are taped or tied to prevent unraveling, the ropes are soaked in hot wax to heat the ropes to about 300 degrees F. and then cooled under tension to remove any curling memory from the fibers. The honda is then tied into the rope and the burner appliance is attached as shown in the patent mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Conventional lariat rope for making lariats for team roping is a three strand rope made from nylon or a blend of nylon and polyester yarns, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,352. One very successful conventional lariat rope is made by first plying two yarns of 1260 denier containing 204 monofilaments each together with 2-6 twists per inch in the Z direction. Next, three of these plied strands are cabled together, again with 2-6 twists per inch, and wound onto cardboard bobbins. Conventional twisting, plying and cabling equipment are used to make the plied and cabled strands.
In the past, calf lariat rope has been made with either polypropylene treated with linseed oil to stiffen the rope or hemp treated with linseed oil and shellac. Surface burrs have to be removed on the hemp rope, and this type of hemp rope is sensitive to changes in humidity giving the lariat rope a different stiffness and feel that differs depending upon the level of humidity in the air. The polypropylene lariat rope doesn""t have as much density, weight per unit volume or per linear foot, as desired for optimum accuracy and other performance including how the slack is pulled from the loop. Also, polypropylene rope stretches more under stress than desired.
In a totally different field, it is known to make heavy duty marine ropes and ropes for use on automatic winching machines having a core as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,563,869, 3,415,052 and 3,026,669. However, such ropes had very heavy structures, were for vastly different purposes and not suitable for lariats.
The invention includes a lariat rope body and a lariat for steer and calf roping competitive events and steer and calf ranching use comprised of three or more twisted strands forming a shell, each strand containing a plurality of yarns comprising a plurality of continuous monofilaments in yarn form and a core comprising a plurality of monofilament yarns, said strands having been wound or twisted around the core under tension to produce a hard, stiff rope. The rope is soaked in a hot wax to form a rope body. The yarns can be in untwisted, twisted, plied or cabled form or mixtures thereof. The lariat also comprises a conventional honda which can be any of the types well known in art of making lariats. The lariats of this invention are also used in Breakaway Roping where the end of the lariat is tied to the saddle horn with a string and a flag and where after the animal is roped, the lariat breaks away from the saddle horn to end the run.
Preferably, the lasso rope body comprises four strands in a shell around a core. Preferably, the core is made up of a plurality of monofilaments or monofilament yarns, some or all of which can have a lower density than the majority of the monofilaments in the shell, and preferably, the core of the rope bodies is comprised mostly or entirely of nylon monofilament yarn, twisted, plied and/or cabled yarns and combinations thereof. The strands forming the shell around the core are preferably comprised mostly or entirely of polyester monofilament yarns, some or all of which can be twisted, plied and/or cabled, most preferably cabled. In the most preferred embodiment for rope bodies, the core is made entirely of cabled nylon yarns. The rope bodies are preferably comprised of four twisted strands twisted around a twisted core with the denier of each strand being in a range of about 97,000 to about 145,000, preferably being in the range of about 104,000 to about 137,000 and most preferably in the range of about 108,000 to about 132,000 in a series of lariats commonly referred to as number 38 to number 46.
The core contains monofilament yarns, plied yarns or cabled yarns and can have a denier in the range of about 30,000 to about 80,000, but preferably has a denier in the range of about 40,000 to about 65,000 and most preferably a denier of about 45,000 to 61,000 with about 45,360 or 60,480 being the most prefered. Preferably, the core is made up of six or eight twisted cabled yarns of nylon filaments. The denier of the rope bodies of the present invention have a denier in the range of about 442,000 to about 650,000, preferably about 475,000 to about 600,000 and most preferably about 492,000 to about 589,000, depending on the size of the lariat. Typically the lariats range from number 38 to a number 46 inclusive of numbers 40, 42, and 44.
In the preferred embodiments of rope bodies and lariats of these products, each of the four strands in the shell contains from eighteen to twenty-two 6000 denier cabled polyester yarns, depending on the size of the rope body, and the core contains eight 7,560 denier cabled nylon 66 yarns.
Some or all of the yarns, preferably in the core, can be air spliced short ends. Short ends are lengths of yarn that are not long enough to make one lariat rope body, usually a remnant on a bobbin or package of yarn. In the past these short ends have been discarded as waste or sold at scrap prices. It has now been discovered that these short ends can be spliced and used, particularly in the core, of the present inventive lariat rope bodies and lariats without causing any manufacturing problems and without affecting the performance of the lariat in competition. Typically, only about one or two splices end up in the core, but it is possible to have more in the core because splices in the core do not show on the outside and their use does not indicate any noticeable difference in performance.
The total denier of the monofilament yarns going into the core can vary from +/xe2x88x92500 up to about +/xe2x88x923 percent. The core preferably contains cabled yarns, but can be made up entirely of untwisted monofilaments or any combination of untwisted monofilament yarn and/or twisted, plied, and cabled yarns or other fabricated configurations and mixtures thereof. The core preferably extends throughout the length of the rope body, but this is not necessary if the core extends throughout the length of the throwing portion of the rope body, i.e. the portion of the rope body including the loop of the lariat and the at least 90 percent of the rope between the loop and that point along the length of the rope where the rope will be wrapped around a saddle horn. The core should be in at least about 68 percent of the length of the rope body beginning on the end with the honda.
When the word xe2x80x9caboutxe2x80x9d is used herein it is meant that the amount or condition it modifies can vary some beyond that so long as the advantages of the invention are realized. Practically, there is rarely the time or resources available to very precisely determine the limits of all the parameters of ones invention because to do would require an effort far greater than can be justified at the time the invention is being developed to a commercial reality. The skilled artisan understands this and expects that the disclosed results of the invention might extend, at least somewhat, beyond one or more of the limits disclosed. Later, having the benefit of the inventors disclosure and understanding the inventive concept and embodiments disclosed including the best mode known to the inventor, the inventor and others can, without inventive effort, explore beyond the limits disclosed to determine if the invention is realized beyond those limits and, when embodiments are found to be without unexpected characteristics, those embodiments are within the meaning of the term about as used herein. It is not difficult for the skilled artisan or others to determine whether such an embodiment is either not surprising or, because of either a break in the continuity of results or one or more features that are significantly better than reported here, is surprising and thus an unobvious teaching leading to a useful result.
The total denier of the material going into the strand on all rope bodies will vary from less than about +/xe2x88x92500 denier to +/xe2x88x923 percent. Since the denier of the monofilament yarn is partly dependent upon the density of the material used to make the monofilaments, the deniers provided here relate the material used in the preferred embodiments respectively.
Preferably, the rope bodies for lariats contain both nylon and polyester monofilament yarns, but bodies containing mixtures of these filaments or yarns, with or without filaments or yarns of other materials, are also suitable. Also, other types of monofilament material having similar characteristics to nylon or polyester would be suitable to use in place of some or all of the nylon, polyester or DACRON(trademark) monofilaments in the lariat rope structures of this invention, such as some polypropylene in the shell, polyethylene and the like. The core preferably contains cabled yarns, but can be made up entirely of untwisted monofilaments or any combination of untwisted monofilament yarn and/or twisted, plied, and cabled yarns or other fabricated configurations and mixtures thereof.
The invention also includes a rope lariat comprising a rope body as described above which has been soaked in hot wax and a honda of any known type, but preferably like that shown in the patent mentioned above. Preferably, the honda also comprises a burner which can be any known material or treatment, but preferably is made of rawhide such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,638.
The invention also includes a method of making novel lariat rope bodies and novel lariats for steer and calf roping competitive events and similar ranging use of the type described above comprising forming three or more bundles of yarns spaced apart, each yarn comprising a plurality of monofilaments, at least one of the yarns being a plied yarn or cabled yarn, twisting each of said three or more bundles under tension to form three or more strands, locating a core within an area bordered by a portion of each of the outer diameters of said bundles, and twisting or winding said strands around the core under tension to form the rope. The core is comprised of a plurality of monofilaments or monofilament yarns. One or more of the yarns can be a twisted, plied or cabled yarn. In the method, a cross having a hole in its center through which the core material passes is used to facilitate forming of the rope.
To make a lariat, the rope body described above is soaked in hot wax to heat the rope to relax any memory in the fibers and to saturate the rope with wax, excess wax is removed and the lariat rope is cooled while held essentially straight under tension. A honda is then affixed to the rope, preferably by tying a small loop in the end of the rope, and preferably a burner is attached to the honda such as by sewing a wet rawhide to the honda in a known manner.
The invention also includes apparatus for making a rope body comprising a novel head box with at least three hooks or bundle holders spaced equidistant from a center point for holding one end of each bundle, a novel cross box sled for holding a novel cross with a hole in its center portion, for holding one end of a core and for applying both tension and compression forces during the rope making process and a novel tail box having a single hook or bundle holder for holding the other end of each of said bundles and a tension mechanism for applying tension to said bundles and a drive for rotating said hook or bundle holder to twist said bundles into a rope body, at least two of said head box, cross box and tail box being movable and at least the head box or the tail box being fixed. Preferably, the cross box and the tail box are movable and the head box is fixed and preferably the cross box also holds a bobbin of core strand.
The invention also includes a novel cross box described herein with a novel cross having a hole in the center to allow core material to be pulled therethrough in combination with a conventional head box and/or a conventional tail box. The present invention also includes a novel head box described herein having a plurality of hooks, each of which is equidistant from a center point, in combination with a cross box and/or tail box of another""s design. The invention also includes the novel tail box disclosed herein having a single hook in combination with a head box and/or cross box of another""s design. The invention also includes the novel cross having a hole in or near the center of the cross for placing the core strand in the rope body.
The calf and steer roping lariats made according to the present invention have superior weight per unit length, superior feel and throwing accuracy and longer life than state of the art calf and steer roping lariats. By using the higher density polyester in the shell and the stronger nylon in the core, a heavier rope body per unit length is made while retaining a desired diameter and this is preferred by professional ropers. The inventive lariats also have much less stretch than conventional polypropylene lariats and much less variation with humidity changes than hemp rope lariats. As a result the inventive lariats are gaining market share of the calf and steer roping lariats even though their cost and price is higher than these conventional calf and steer roping lariats.